


indigo, vermilion

by orphan_account



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, London, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11467962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: DeLorne's women were considered a trademark of the art of Christophe DeLorne, a renowned painter of the 1920s. There has been much speculation as to the identity of the red-haired women in his paintings; was it several women or just one? What scholars of DeLorne's art don’t know is that the real DeLorne woman, the muse of all his work, is actually a young man.





	indigo, vermilion

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Índigo, vermelho](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11467743) by [caulaty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caulaty/pseuds/caulaty). 



> **Author's note:** Since this fic was written especially for Nyah! Fanfiction’s April Yaoi Challenge, there was, of course, a word count limit, something I struggle a lot with. I had to edit out a lot of stuff to fit inside the word limit, I think the idea for this story turned out to be a lot bigger than I had originally planned. Sorry if it seems incomplete. I might turn this into a longer fic someday.
> 
> I picked the first theme for the challenge, so this story takes place in 1922.

The canvas was unframed, though that wasn’t unusual for freshly painted, recently finished works of art. Christophe refused to allow his paintings to be framed so long as they were still in his possession. The painting in question, which was taller than the two men currently contemplating it, portrayed the delicate curves of a woman with short, wild red hair. Her hair wasn’t red-red, but rather, the truest, most vivacious orange, the color taking over the painting and contrasting with the black and white. The woman was semi-nude, or at least that was what it looked like, with a peach-colored blush to her lovely cheeks. There was a huge armchair, black with white stripes, with alternating designs that looked like daisies. The woman was seated, facing the side, wearing transparent black pantyhose on her gorgeous legs and an unhooked garter-belt around her waist. On her feet were black high-heels. That was all she was wearing. The arm of the chair and the book she was holding hid her naked curves from view. There was a cigarette in her mouth, poised between her voluptuous lips, the smoke rising. She was one of DeLorne’s famous women; an aesthetic that could be recognized even in the dark, a figure that had garnered great success in London’s artistic and academic circles. Almost every DeLorne woman was painted smoking, since smoking, far more than women, was Christophe’s true passion. There were those who said that smoking was the only thing he truly loved. Like most of the women portrayed in his work, this one didn’t have long hair, but rather, fierce, short, thick curls. Even the women who didn’t have short hair never had hair long enough to reach their shoulders. The majority of DeLorne’s women had red hair, but there were a handful with more brown or blond hair, depending on the light.

She was sitting lazily in the armchair, almost as if she were slipping off it, with a strong emphasis on her long legs, one crossed over the other, the tip of her right foot pointed in a way that resembled a ballerina’s.

“She looks like… a broken doll,” Gregory commented, raising his hand to his mouth with the air of someone who hoped to come across as inquisitive. He did that a lot.

Christophe’s only response was a low grunt as he moved away from the canvas to go wash his brushes over in the tank. He respected Gregory’s opinion immensely – he was an extremely intellectualized man who had been studying Fine Art almost since he had learned how to read. Christophe didn’t bother expressing that respect, however, as Gregory’s ego was already too inflated for his own good; he was a writer who spoke like a critic. He had the awful habit of assuming everyone always wanted to listen to what he had to say.

“So you’re not going to tell me who she is?” Gregory asked, as if this were the first time the topic had arisen between them.

Christophe and Gregory had known each other for what seemed like ages. They had one of those relationships where they had been part of each other’s lives for so long that it no longer mattered that they didn’t have anything in common. They had both gone to Yardale, a renowned university, the perfect environment for Gregory. He gave off such an academic air, too, with his neat checked sweaters and perfect blond hair, slicked back with gel. His typewriter was his lover, an extension of his right hand, upon which he authored spectacularly cruel poems. At everything he set out to do, he was, without question, a genius.

Christophe, on the other hand, was a creative animal. It wasn’t unusual to come into his studio and find him covered head-to-toe in paint. Almost all of his paintbrushes had teeth marks on them, since he always used more than one at a time and held the other in his mouth. Christophe painted because it was a biological necessity. As a child, he had immigrated to England from France with his mother, a prostitute, and had grown up in poverty. He tried to become a carpenter, painting walls so as to support his ailing mother. When she died from syphilis early on a cold morning in November of 1919, Christophe saw no reason to do anything other than paint. Gregory’s father took him in as a second son, dumping a considerable amount into his education and advising him to simply believe in his talent.

“I already told you,” Christophe said. “She’s a whore.”

“Excuse me, dearest, but I simply fail to see how a…” Gregory gave a ridiculous pause, laughing at the inelegant word choice. “A single whore could ever be one man’s muse.”

“‘Muse’? What sort of shit are you spouting now?”

“Isn’t she though? You’ve been painting the same woman for over a year now. Don’t expect me to buy into the idiocies they claim over in the galleries, ‘the DeLorne women’ aren’t just an aesthetic trademark.”

The studio was small. The dark damask wallpaper was peeling off in places, exposing the grout. There were also a number of jars of mixed paint, their lids all scrambled up and stained with a few drops of paint at the very least, dirty rags and the beginnings of sculptures, some stone, others clay. Lots of finished paintings and others in progress.

Christophe didn’t respond with words, but a low grunt did escape his lips as he shook his head, rubbing the bristles of a paintbrush clean with his fingers, seeing how the diluted paint colored the running water. It was pretty.

Fortunately, Gregory knew his limits and didn’t hesitate in changing the topic, loudly remarking upon a new project he was working on with his pedantic, intellectual friends whom Christophe didn’t like. In turn, those friends viewed him as a primitive savage, a deranged beast.

It was just as Gregory was leaving that he took Christophe’s arms and kissed his face, making a point of mentioning that he’d noticed a passionate blush on the French painter’s cheeks as of late. He said he thought Christophe had a lighter, less intense air about him, seeming very much like a man in love. _“But, my friend, how can you be so ashamed of passion? It’s the very spirit of our work!”_ the British man had said, citing Christophe’s sordid refusal to discuss such things. Gregory presumed it was shame, for he saw Christophe as an animal that had never been properly domesticated and didn’t know how to behave in society. Maybe that was the root of Gregory’s curiosity towards his friend’s love life. Christophe, by nature, was not a romantic.

It was difficult to explain to Gregory why his theory was so ludicrous. Gregory didn’t believe there was more than one DeLorne woman, but the truth was independent of external speculations: the figure portrayed was not, in fact, a “DeLorne woman”, as she did not belong to him and she wasn’t even a woman to begin with.

After Gregory left Christophe’s flat, which was his studio as well as his living quarters, Christophe put on his linen jacket, hiding his suspenders from view, donned his black bowler hat over his messy hair, and went out the door, his appearance only barely presentable. As soon as he stepped out onto the street, he lit a cigarette. He went by foot towards the seediest, least-traveled part of the dodgiest part of London; night was falling, bit by bit, the day slipping away. Nighttime activity was abundant around these parts. Bohemians could be found anywhere there was cold beer and pretty girls; Christophe could hear the tune of “April Showers” coming from some such locale. Without fully realizing it, he began to whistle as he crossed the plaza illuminated by street lamps.

He recognized Kyle, first and foremost, by the nape of his neck. It would have been strange to say that that neck drew more attention than those offensively red curls, but that was very first thing that caught Christophe’s eye. It was no coincidence that DeLorne women all had long necks. Christophe had even had perverse dreams about that neck.

Kyle Broflovski was a problem.

In the eyes of polite society, he was seen as almost a sort of demon. Not even in the underworld he belonged to was he accepted, having characteristics far too feminine to be acceptable, though not so much that he could be confused with a woman. While he didn’t dress like one, he had never in his life been seen in a suit. He was an androgynous creature whose origins no one knew, though Christophe suspected he was American. He had an accent and could sing beautifully. It wasn’t uncommon to find him humming and whistling along the cobblestone alleyways, flirting with lonely young men who weren’t completely satisfied by their wives. Men of all ages used him only to spit in his face right after, ashamed of themselves. Even so, they didn’t stop seeing him or spending money on him. A lot of them fell in love with him, promising him a better life, but Kyle thought it was hilarious that they were so close-minded as to think his life on the fringes of society was so terrible. There was nothing better than this. Besides, there was a certain charm in being a disgrace.

Kyle, of course, was not the only one providing such an important social service. There were other boys in the alleys as well. They never hung around one spot for too long, careful not been discovered; some feared the fury of the Man, others, the men who threw rocks at them. Their clients’ shame was far more intense than the boys’ own, because they spent most of their time pretending they were normal. That was what guaranteed their silence.

Christophe, on the other hand, didn’t understand shame. Not that kind, at least.

“My favorite artist,” Kyle said when he felt Christophe’s firm hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even need to turn around to see who it was; that rough grip was enough for him to know. Most of his clients didn’t dare touch him in public.

Christophe’s cigarette smoke wafted directly into Kyle’s face. Also a smoker, Kyle wasn’t particularly bothered by this sort of thing, though it was true that he’d never met anyone who smoked as much as Christophe. He coughed but still tried to smile, like he’d been trained to. Holding the cigarette in his mouth, without saying a world, Christophe took off his jacket and put it around Kyle’s shoulders. As he was doing this, Kyle took the opportunity to take the cigarette from his lips – cracked lips that Kyle loved dearly, the lower more pronounced than the upper – with his hand, the movement soft and skilled. Christophe held eye contact with him throughout, watching Kyle raise the cigarette to his lips with the malicious smile of naughty child. The orange light of the cigarette illuminated the blackness of the alleyway. Kyle settled into the heavy jacket, which was far too big for his skinny body, before returning the cigarette to Christophe. He exhaled the smoke close to Christophe’s face, laughing.

Usually, Kyle went to Christophe’s studio at pre-arranged times on set days. This, therefore, was quite a surprise.

“Are you free?” Christophe casually asked in his accent thick, taking another drag of his cigarette.

“No, in ten minutes, I have a…”

“Cancel it.”

Kyle’s smile faded for a moment, but soon returned with even more vibrancy, as if he’d just heard something incredibly stupid.

“You always think you’re so important.”

“How much will it cost me?”

His green eyes shining like a cat’s, Kyle ran his tongue across his lips with intrigue. His goal wasn’t really to get more money out of the painter, who, as esteemed as he was, didn’t have as much money as one might think. What delighted Kyle was knowing that he had power over this man, that Christophe wanted him this badly. Thus, he didn’t charge extra to join him for two hours, in the intimate quarters of his studio.

They fucked twice. First, the way Christophe liked, fast and domineering, leaving a trail of bruises on Kyle’s body like some primitive form of possession; the next, on the narrow mattress, with Christophe on his back, covered in sweat, and Kyle on top of him, slowly grinding his hips into his lap as he watch Christophe smoke yet another cigarette. The smell penetrated his curls, the sheets stained with dried paint, even the glass of water over to the side. Kyle liked having sex surrounded by those paintings, almost all of them portraying human forms – Christophe didn’t paint static nature or landscapes – that stared at them, as if they knew his secret.

Their post-coital conversations were usually monologues on behalf of Kyle, who would still be naked and sweaty as he lounged on the bed and laughed at his own comments, Christophe watching him in silence. Kyle would shoot him a multitude of questions but simply continued talking when Christophe didn’t respond; it didn’t bother him, being ignored. He knew Christophe was paying attention to him.

On this particular night, Kyle was quiet. Lying on his stomach, with his ass in the air and his face in his hands, his lips resultantly squished together in a way that made him look a lot younger than he was. Christophe put out his cigarette in the can he’d cut in half to use as an ashtray; he had his back to the wall, since the bed had no headboard.

“When are you going to stop doing this?” Christophe asked in a gruff voice, clearing his throat.

Kyle raised his head to look at him with curiosity, seeming genuinely confused.

“Stop doing what?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not. I do a lot of things you wish I wouldn’t. You think I don’t know that?”

Christophe let out a derisive laugh and snorted; he knew Kyle well enough to see through the cheap manipulation tactics he used with the other men he slept with. Kyle sat up and kneeled on the bed. There was a hint of a smile on his swollen lips, but he didn’t let it blossom, for he knew Christophe was easily irritated.

“What is it?” Christophe asked, annoyed by Kyle’s expression.

“You. Insinuating that I stop serving other men.”

“‘Serving’? Is that what you call it, opening your legs for just anybody?”

Kyle rolled his eyes at the comment, but only once he had turned his back on Christophe, dragging himself over to the edge of the bed, putting his feet on the floor. There was a circular mirror a few yards away that reflected his body from the abdomen up. The frame of the mirror had been hand-painted, and the sky blue paint was peeling off.

“You’re so crude,” Kyle murmured distractedly, his green eyes fixed on his own reflection as he tried to tidy up his hair, which had become disheveled by the carnal acts they’d performed in the narrow bed. “It’s still a service. I didn’t think you were so moralistic.” He stopped for a moment, looking at Christophe over his shoulder before saying in a provocative tone: “Or are you jealous?”

What Kyle expected was a violent reaction – Christophe didn’t respond well to accusations of weakness – but Christophe neither defended himself with irony nor told Kyle to shut up. His response was subtle; he didn’t make eye contact with Kyle, looking instead at nothing in particular, as if he were truly considering it.

“What is your life missing?” Christophe asked after a long pause, finally looking at Kyle again.

“Do you really want to know? Because I can’t imagine giving up my life for a man so romantic that he paints painting after painting of someone who isn’t actually me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Christophe, please. Look at your paintings. They’re all women.”

With that, Kyle got up from the bed, exposing his slim figure, his white skin marred with purple bruises on his thighs, red marks from violent fingers on his ass, on his back. He looked for his clothes on the floor, also to get his watch out from his pocket to see how much time had gone by. Finally, he began to get dressed.

“Do I not satisfy you?” Christophe gruffly asked.

“You’re ashamed of me. You’re afraid they’ll find out what you do in bed. I don’t blame you, it’s a reasonable thing to fear, and you have a reputation to uphold. Just don’t expect me to give anything up for you.”

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t give a rat’s ass what they think of me – they’re elitist pieces of shit who think they hold art in their filthy, stinking hands. They’re fools.”

“Then paint me.”

“Isn’t that what I do when I’m not fucking you?!”

Kyle parted his lips to respond angrily, but then he shut them again, running his tongue over them. He looked away, fastening the last buttons of his shirt. Each article of clothing he put on was an agony, but Christophe didn’t move. He just watched him, letting the silence grow between them.

“Fine then,” Kyle said, looking at the floor, swallowing dryly. He turned to face Christophe, stepping as lightly as a geisha as he approached the bed, putting his hands on the mattress as he leaned forward, placing his lips on Christophe’s, whose were cold and slow to respond. The kiss was hot and wet, but it ended quickly. When Kyle stood back up, he was already wearing his usual mask. “That’s all you get.”

“It’s not enough.”

Kyle smiled as he moved away. As always, he left quickly. Christophe spent a few moments alone, in the dim light, that kiss planted on his lips.

But then he got up and, still completely naked, quickly began mixing paints, carrying a huge white canvas over to the easel. He wasn’t used to painting without Kyle here, posing on the bed or the armchair for him, always covered in a robe. It’s worth noting that DeLorne’s women don’t have their breasts exposed anymore. The only thing on Christophe’s mind were the contours of that naked body he knew by heart. That was how he would paint him. Let them call him what they will.


End file.
